Well, 1 million is no joke.Its a shame, but they are the legal owners of the franchise.They should had been clear since the start and not allow they reach such point.Now with everything ready they got greedy, cause of the money raised...

I'm extremely saddened by this, although it is the other shoe dropping that all fan endeavours, from Axanar on down to a game like ours, have feared. Star Trek is owned by a corporation. That said, your idea of a boycott/letter campaign is correct Adam, and a way for fans to speak up. There's a few myths built around the somewhat apocryphal letter campaing in 1968 that "saved" ST, but boycotts and bad PR can work sometimes.

Huh? It doesn't matter if a fan-funded movie has $5000 or $5,000,000. We, as free American citizens, have the right to create stories based on our cultural heritage, including Star Trek. We cannot sell these stories (movies, books, music, etc.) because of copyright protection. That is a reasonable restriction. As long as the Axanar Works are freely distributed and give credit to Roddenberry, Paramount, and other intellectual property owners, there shouldn't be a problem.

The courts should dismiss this paranoid lawsuit. Paramount and CBS do not own our culture. These companies cannot stop us from creating non-commercial derivatives. Perhaps they need to make better movies if they're actually worried about becoming irrelevant in the future of Star Trek.

I wish you were right Tar but yours is common misinterpretation of copyright law and, as the owners of Star trek, CBS is well within their legal rights to protect said copyright. This is hardly a "frivolous" lawsuit that will be thrown out nor is Axanar truly a free-speech case, whether they charge a penny or not. Axanar borrows too heavily from the source and cannot be considered parody or commentary so there is little protection for it from the often-quoted-but-usually-misunderstood "Fair Use" component of copyright law. I am by no means a lawyer but I run into copyright in my work, and five minutes of research highlights for me the problems the Axanar team faces:

The chances of the Axanar team receiving a sympathetic judge is on the low side for sure. IMO, there is a better chance of fans like us making this a PR nightmare for CBS by complaining, loudly. Start pushing on all your social media accounts, complain loudly, using the hashtag #IstandwithAxanar

As "free" as we are, we live in a capitalist society dominated by corporations, and they have most of the lawyers...

I doubt there will be any money returned, nor are they legally obliged to do so. Oh well, I've spent more and gotten less before. To paraphrase the franchise of the other evil empire:"I had a bad feeling about this." Those morons can't even see the gift horse, let alone look it in the mouth.

A company sitting on money hoards wants more and bugs fans for more. No news here, basically.

That's the point, if they officially licensed it as an alternate/original universe franchise everyone could win big. Gee, an alternate universe. I wonder where I've seen that before just recently, like in 2009...

Well, it appears CBS knows that Axanar is exactly what fans want, because they are trying to shut us down! While Team Axanar will have a response shortly, know this DOES NOT deter us from what we are doing! Delivering to fans exactly what you want. Goliath, meet David (and his thousands of screaming fans)!‪#‎IstandwithAxanar

This is hardly a "frivolous" lawsuit that will be thrown out nor is Axanar truly a free-speech case, whether they charge a penny or not. Axanar borrows too heavily from the source and cannot be considered parody or commentary so there is little protection for it from the often-quoted-but-usually-misunderstood "Fair Use" component of copyright law.

As "free" as we are, we live in a capitalist society dominated by corporations, and they have most of the lawyers...

The First Amendment is at the heart of this issue from my perspective. If I write a novel about Kirk and Spock and welcome the general American public to read it, nobody has the authority to confiscate or interfere with my work unless I'm selling it or harming the IP owners' revenues. The sale of this book would clearly challenge Paramount's copyright and could be considered theft of intellectual property. But Paramount does not own our culture. They have been granted temporary copyrights that allow them to profit from their labors and assets. Afterwards, other entities can profit from Tribbles, Romulans, Vulcans, and Klingons if they choose to do so, or remain non-commercial. This is constitutional (USA):

Quote from: JamesMadison

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

"limited Times"... Is 50 years of Trek enough? Of course, corporations will NEVER allow their copyrights to expire. The citizens of the USA, through their representatives in government, must enforce the temporary nature of copyrights.

OK, here's a thought I've had in recent months, since I've been following the Axanar updates which are posted almost daily.

Alec Peters has used some of the proceeds from the kickstarters and such to build an (independent) movie studio. Axanar Productions as a studio has become a pretty extensive facility, with the most recent addition being construction of one of the largest green screens outside of Hollywood proper.

So while they may not be earning a profit from the movie itself, the props, facilities, etc. that they are building can be used to generate a profit for other endeavors, and it's pretty obvious to me that Alec is thinking beyond Axanar based on some statements he's made in recent months. As such, it could be argued that the Axanar team is, in effect, profiting from use of the Star Trek copyright.

That being said, I think that CBS's long history of allowing fan productions does call this matter somewhat into question. Why should only Axanar be targetted, but not other productions, i.e. selective enforcement of the copyright? It is CBS's copyright, but if they are going to draw the line with Axanar, then really all other Trek related fan efforts should be addressed as well.

Myself, I think that CBS would be wise to settle with the Axanar team on some sort of 'use of copyright' agreement. This could turn Axanar into a for profit venture, but then both sides could benefit (CBS could then share the revenues generated with Axanar studios). Sure, Axanar is the 'infringing party', and Alec has made several efforts to negotiate in good faith with CBS (at least according to the press releases I've read), but I think that the CBS legal team would do better by setting some reasonable terms for 'use of copyright' rather than shutting this down entirely.

Of course, movie studios aren't noted for making the best decisions, and we have plenty of examples of things in 'copyright limbo' because the rights to some game or something can't be secured or even in some cases clearly established. So, I'm not overly optimistic about Alec Peter's chances to move forward on this. I do hope that an arrangement can be reached, because at this point that is the best chance for Axanar to move forward.

We saw Enterprise killed off by Paramount (just when it was getting interesting), because they chose to terminate the series instead of allowing the production to move to Canada at a much cheaper cost to produce. There was a proposal on the table to do exactly that, but because Paramount studios wouldn't be doing the production in Hollywood, that proposal died a quick death. Since they didn't think it could be profitable enough/generate the numbers they wanted if they continued to do it onsite, they killed Enterprise off.

MGM understood this very well with the Stargate franchise by doing the production in Canada, which is why Stargate was so long lived I'm sure. With 10 seasons, plus movies and several spin-offs (5 seasons of Stargate Atlantis, and the short-lived SGU, oh and wasn't there a cartoon too?), the Stargate license did very well for MGM.

So yeah, CBS/Paramount making this move now doesn't surprise me, but it'll take a herculean effort by the fans to change the course CBS is now on. Time to make some noise!

I'm hoping the effort won't need to be truly herculean, we just need to be vocal. This is not the time to lie down with a "meh," saying "I'll miss my Trek". There are no doubt far more intricacies to this CBS/Axanar feud than any of us know or can guess at, but what we can do is complain. Loudly, and more importantly, publicly. I do not know why CBS is going after Axanar, maybe they crossed a line somewhere, but CBS could do this with any fan product, from "ST:Phase II" all the way down the food chain to something that could affect us here. We know CBS is being the bad guys here, time to let other know that too.

Freezing won't help you. Disney already broke the public domain system when their property was going into free use territory by getting their rights extended. It was the beginning of the end of PD as we know it.

Reading through the Ars Technica and TrekBBS comments, yeah this is going to be an uphill battle. The perks that the Axanar team has been offering for donations won't help their case.

Again, CBS needs to be made to understand that moving this production under their wing is in their best interest, by working out an arrangement whereby Axanar becomes a 'sanctioned production'. Essentially CBS, in association with Axanar Productions or some such. I do think that the case does need to move forward, as Alec has really stretched some assumptions here, but I don't think they should kill the production altogether, just work out a mutual arrangement.

As pointed out above, the jury trial does open up some possibilities, but at the end of the day it's still CBS's copyright and they get to choose where and when to enforce that copyright.

I don't see any harm whatsoever with Axanar coiming out in 2016, as this will simply generate more interest in Trek. CBS needs to get onboard so they can really get their gravy train rolling. Marvel Studios has benefitted greatly by putting multiple franchises onscreen, and at this point we are seeing 2-3 Marvel related movies onscreeen every year (We get 4 Marvel related movies in 2016, and four more in 2017!). All three 2015 Marvel movies didn't do badly. Ant-Man grossed 517 Million Worldwide, and Fantastic Four only grossed about $168 Milllion worldwide. So even their less impressive efforts are crossing the $100 million mark.

CBS/Paramount should take note, and embrace the 2-3 movies a year model. Sure, most of the fan prodcutions aren't truly up to studio level, but those that are close (Axanar, Renegades) should probably be embraced, as one offs if nothing else. Worst case is they get shunned, and if an independent studio is fronting the bill then CBS isn't out any money if they don't do as well, plus the independendt movie production costs will allow for a much larger margin for error (i.e. even if it only grosses $25 million, everybody still wins).

In addition to the #IstandwithAxanar I think #NoAxanarNoBeyond is good hash...whatever... I can't believe I'm actually considering doing something with the Twits? Tweets? whatever... too old for this stuff...

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"Your mighty GDI forces have been emasculated, and you yourself are a killer of children. Now of course it's not true. But the world only believes what the media tells them to believe. And I tell the media what to believe, its really quite simple." - Kane (Joe Kucan) Command & Conquer Tiberium Dawn (1995)

"limited Times"... Is 50 years of Trek enough? Of course, corporations will NEVER allow their copyrights to expire. The citizens of the USA, through their representatives in government, must enforce the temporary nature of copyrights.

The problem is that our Congress and the EU have been trying to take the concept of copyright and patent into perpetuity. That is, whomever has intellectual property rights is free to collect rents while producing nothing. In the case of the owners of the ST franchise, I'd have to rephrase that to be "nothing of value."

Were the Congress of the United States, and the governing bodies of the EU responsive to democratic forces, these protections would be directed at protecting artists, rather than corporations. As it is, properties, like ST are going to become less valuable, as the owners can't do much more with them than mock the audience.

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Cannon (can' nun) n. An istrument used to rectify national boundries. Ambrois Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary